Targeting may seem like a pretty silly little trick, but it's enormously useful, and leads to lots of other great tricks, like retrieving. Besides that, it's very easy to teach and lots of fun to watch his lips stretch out to touch your hand when he doesn't really want to bother coming any closer!

COMEBEFORES - He's going to have to be comfortable taking treats from you.

START HERE - In a round pen or haltered. You'll need a bag of treats.

AIM FOR THIS - You put your hand out. The llama reaches out and touches it with his nose.

HOW TO TEACH IT - Offer the llama a treat in your hand. Let him take it. When he's finished eating it, offer him another. Offer the next one in such a manner that he'll hit your outstretched fingers just before he gets to the treat. Repeat this three or four times. Repeat another three or four times, but this time cup your hand around the treat so he can't quite see it before he touches you. As soon as he makes contact, open your hand so he can easily get at the treat. Now, a little trickery. Hold your cupped hand out just as you did before, but this time your treat is in your OTHER hand. He doesn't know that, of course, so he touches your cupped hand as he did before. Drop your cupped hand, and immediately offer him the treat from your other hand. Play around with this. Present your hand to one side of his head, and to the other side. Hold your hand further in front of his nose, and finally ask him to take a step or two to get close enough to touch it. When he decides it's silly to keep trying to touch a hand with no treat in it, put your treat back in that hand for a couple more repetitions, then take it out again.

IN OTHER WORDS - This will go faster if you're using a clicker. Click at the exact instant his lip touches your hand, to tell him what you're paying for.

ADDING A CUE - My hand cue for touching is to hold my hand out, fingertips touching and pointing up. My voice cue is "Touch". Start saying the word as the llama is approaching the hand to touch it.

USING IT - Hand targeting is a lovely, elegant behaviour to ask a skittish llama for. Having something to do helps him calm down. Turning your hand into an object to be manipulated gives him confidence in you. Targeting is also a good behaviour to ask for when you need something quick just to stay in touch. When I have a group that wants to get out of the barn, for instance, I'll stand in the doorway and ask each one to touch my hand to "earn passage" out the door.

TARGET AN OBJECT - Once you have hand targeting, getting an object target is pretty simple. Start with a dowel tucked up your arm so it barely shows between your fingers. Get a few hand targets, then push the dowel further and further out from your hand. Present the dowel so the llama runs into it before he gets to the hand he wants to touch. Click the touch, and reward as quickly as possible.

You can teach the llama to touch the end of your whip. If you're careful, by gradually rewarding him for only the touches that are toward the END of the whip, you can teach him to touch ONLY the end. Once he's reaching for the end of the whip, you can use it to stretch his neck up while you're teaching him to pose for halter classes, or to lead him around you in a large circle. The voice cue for targeting an object is "Touch", the same as for targeting your hand. Eventually you'll be able to say "Touch" and have him touch anything you indicate. If you're really getting into teaching your llama neat stuff, Touch is the first step in teaching him to retrieve.